The Bridegroom Was a Dog

Yoko Tawada, Margaret Mitsutani (Translator)

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Author
Yoko Tawada, Margaret Mitsutani (Translator)
Publish Date
2025-11-25
Book Type
Hardcover
Publisher Name
New Directions Publishing Corporation
Number of Pages
80
ISBN-10
0811239969
ISBN-13
9780811239967
SKU
9780811239967

Description

Masterfully turning the rules of folklore and fable on their head, The Bridegroom Was a Dog is a disarming and unforgettable modern classic. Its initial publication in 1998 garnered admiration from The New Yorker, which praised it as a "fast-moving, mysteriously compelling tale that has the dream quality of Kafka."

The Bridegroom Was a Dog begins with a schoolteacher telling a fable to her students. In the fable, a princess promises her hand in marriage to a dog that has licked her bottom clean. The story takes an even stranger twist when that very dog appears to the schoolteacher in real life as a doglike man. A romantic -- and sexual -- courtship develops, much to the chagrin of her friends, who have suspicions about the man's identity.